


darling don't you ever grow up (just stay this little)

by afire



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Future Fic, Post-Canon, Riley-centric, SO, but to be fair she's thinking about maya so i guess also maya centric as well, lots of unnecessary prose but what more can you expect from me, most of this is riley thinking about maya, riley matthews character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 10:23:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9319463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afire/pseuds/afire
Summary: Riley thinks about her past, her present, and her future.(or: there are some things in life you keep with you forever)





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my tribute to the last three episodes of this season, I hope you like it.

The bay window has always been her safe place. It's an unquestionable, irrevocable fact. Everyone knows it, but as she stands there, hands in her pockets and looking at the view she's known her whole life, Riley thinks everyone has it backward.

The bay window is her safe place, yes, but it's only ever felt that way when Maya sat beside her. She can still remember, so clearly, the first time they met, it's one of the most poignant memories she has. She remembers singing a nonsensical tune and she remembers kicking her legs against the little compartment underneath her window and she remembers the little girl who climbed in. The image is so stark on the back of her eyelids, Riley almost feels five again, not knowing that the girl she's smiling at would become so important to her.

Not then, anyway.

It's always been Maya who made the bay window feel safe. Before her, it was just a window. She liked it, and was very happy when her parents told her this room was hers, but to Riley, her safe place only became a safe place after Maya became a permanent fixture in it. Bumps in the road notwithstanding.

This is where everyone has it backward. They all think, she knows, that the bay window has always been her safe place because it's where she grew up, it's where she feels at home. But they also thought Maya was just her best friend, and look how that turned out. The bay window is most definitely her safe place, but so is the little alcove in Topanga's right next to the door, so is the little area in front of her locker, so is the chair underneath the window in Maya's bedroom.

The point is, Riley has lots of safe places, and they only have one thing in common. Maya. Her safe places are only safe places because it's where she sits with Maya and let's all the walls and masks and lies fall away. It's where Maya isn't afraid to let herself hope and where Riley isn't afraid to stop smiling. It's where they both can sit quietly and say so much more than if they were talking. The bay window just happens to have more frequent use than the others because of location and convenience.

The bay window is important, but Riley thinks they've been through enough for her to say, confidently, that Maya is even more so. Maya is the one thing that makes those places feel like home. Because with Maya, she could go anywhere and there will be a safe place waiting for her. The feeling of security she has when standing next to Maya is so phenomenally unique, she's never felt it anywhere else, except maybe when she's sitting in between her parents during quiet nights, and even then it's a different kind of security. What she feels with Maya, _about_ Maya, it can't be compared to anything else.

She's just so happy that all the secret glances and tentatively toeing the line of platonic declarations of love has spiraled into something much, much better. So much has happened, and so much has changed, not necessarily for the better, either. So much is changing _right now_ , and Riley is just grateful for the fact that what she has with Maya never will. It's solidity in the fluidity of her life, and she needs solid, she needs a foundation to stand on, she needs a security blanket, she needs to be sure someone will catch her when she falls.

Maya will catch her, Maya wouldn't even let her fall in the first place. Maya will always make sure she has two feet firmly on the ground, and Riley will forever be grateful for that.

Everyone says high school relationships never last but they've always been more than that. They're just so much _more_ than that, they're more than a high school relationship, more than a summer fling, and definitely more than friends with benefits who were getting a head-start on college experimentation.

They're something else entirely, something inexplainable and magical and wondrous. When Riley says _'I love you'_ she means _'I never want you to leave'_ and _'my heart is yours'_ but she also means _'we're something special'_ and _'you and me forever'_ and sometimes she thinks she's loved Maya before, will love her after, and loves her, too, at every moment in between.

She figures standing in front of the bay window and thinking about how much she loves Maya isn't how she expected the afternoon to go, but to be fair, Riley spends a lot of time daydreaming about this particular subject. She's still as much of a dreamer as ever, and Maya is still keeping her grounded when she needs to be.

The little figurine of the astronaut and the horse isn't sitting on her dresser anymore, it's on the bedside table she found at a garage sale and decided to haul all the way to her college dorm room, right next to the framed picture of her and Maya at a country fair.

It had been a hot summer and all Riley wanted was a snow-cone from an "authentic country fair", she remembers going on and on and on about it for the first two weeks of summer. Maya had dug through the internet for days to find one, and then drove them five hours on a Friday night while Riley slept in the passenger seat just to get there in time for the weekend.

The picture had been taken by a freelance photographer looking to fill up her portfolio. She'd gladly given the photo to them, saying she had more than enough already, anyway. Riley remembers laughing and Maya's adoring gaze and the flash of light out of the corner of her eye. It's an excellent photo, with Riley holding her melting snow-cone, the biggest grin on her face, and Maya smiling up at her.

She likes looking at it because it reminds her of what happened not two seconds after, Maya leaning up to steal a kiss and saying that Riley tasted like raspberry. She likes looking at it because she knows Maya has that exact same photo in _her_ dorm room, likes knowing that even in the simplest of ways they're connected.

There are moments when it feels like she's known Maya forever, and it's more truth than lie, anyway. She can't quite remember the years before she turned five, but Maya's presence highlights the rest of her childhood, almost like an explosion of colour, fireworks dancing in her vision and tickling the edges of her memory. It follows her through adolescence and into her teenage years, and she knows it will follow her the rest of her life.

Riley tries not to think about the pockets of time she didn't have Maya to lean on. It's an important aspect of her growing up, and she can't just forget it, however much she wants to. Some people have to suffer to learn and she supposes she's one of them. She doesn't think she can just forget the heartache either. It had felt, then, like a physical pain, like someone was punching her repeatedly in the chest and she could do nothing to stop it. Riley won't ever forget that, it sits in the back of her mind, taunting her with the possibility of its return.

Riley won't let it. She absolutely, straight up refuses to allow Maya to ever drift away from her ever again. It's never going to happen, and she knows Maya feels the same way. They're going to hold onto each other as tightly as they can, and neither of them are going to let go.

There won't be anymore falling into strangers' laps on subways.

Riley doesn't realize she's staring blankly at the wall until she's jolted back to reality by the sound of creaky hinges. She smiles when she sees that it's the window, and not her bedroom door.

Some things never change, and Riley would never want them to.

There's something that feels a little like warmth and a lot like love when Maya climbs in, stunning in her familiarity. She's wearing an old hoodie, paint-splattered and hanging loosely around her shoulders, the epitome of easy comfort. Riley smiles when she looks up and they spend a couple of seconds just staring at each other, matching grins on their faces.

"What are you doing?"

"Thinking about you," Riley replies easily, because it is no longer under any doubt in what context she means this and they are both content in, and more importantly aware of, their mutual affection.

Maya smiles, and it's soft and secretive and the one that only Riley gets to see. "Miss me?"

"Always."

Maya walks over to her bed and collapses onto it, spreading her arms above her head. "Will you miss living here?"

And Riley knows she means more than she's saying, because Riley always knows what Maya isn't saying but wholeheartedly means.

She isn't really just moving out this time, there's something heavier underlying the entire situation, something that wasn't there when Riley moved away for college. Moving out for college didn't ever feel like moving _out_ , because she knew she'd be back. For Christmas and the summer and about half a dozen weekends. It was just a temporary absence. Her college dorm room had never really felt like home, not like this room felt, not like being with Maya felt.

This time, she really is moving out, to another apartment, another room, another window. The only reason she isn't freaking out is because Maya is coming with her, and Maya has always had the amazing ability to make anywhere feel like home.

"Yeah," she says, turning to face the bed, knowing she has a moony, lovestruck expression on her face and also that she really has no control over it, "you know I will." Because Maya has always had this annoying habit of underestimating the extent of her capacity to understand how Riley feels without ever having to ask.

"If you're having second thoughts—"

"Stop it," Riley says, because Maya also has the annoying habit of underestimating _herself_. "I want a home with you, you know that, too."

And because they're older now, more mature, willing to admit, and more importantly accept their feelings, Maya doesn't expertly change the topic, doesn't stand up and walk away. All she does is smile sheepishly and apologize, and Riley marvels at how far they've come from the days of their youth, when the both of them were so adamant at repressing their feelings that it took a few years to truly come clean.

There's nothing hidden now, nothing either of them is keeping from the other, no more secrets, no more lies, no more half-truths. It's just Riley and Maya, just like how it used to be, just like how it will be for the rest of their lives. Riley isn't naive, not as much as she used to be, anyway, she knows there'll be fights, but she also knows they'll work it out, because they've come too far and been through too much to let silly, little fights break them apart.

"You know," Riley says, because it's okay to joke around with each other now, no more toeing lines and hiding behind facades, "if _you're_ having seconds thoughts."

When Maya laughs and replies with, "Honey, I barely have enough headspace for a single thought," she knows it's the right thing to have said.

Riley's here today to get the last of her stuff to move into her new apartment, the one she got with Maya, with the open-floor plan and lots of sunlight throughout the day. She can already see the potted plant in the kitchen window, the lazy cat and excitable dog, can hear the never-ending hustle and bustle of pedestrians and cars.

And maybe, some day in the future, the pitter-patter of tiny feet, high-pitched voices, and Maya's warm laughter.

For now, she picks up the bag full of her stuff, artfully dodging out of the way when Maya makes a lunge for it and sticking her tongue out playfully.

"It's my stuff."

"I like taking care of you."

"I know, peaches, but I'd like to do this myself."

Maya nods, and Riley's thankful that she doesn't have to say more, though she's always known that Maya understands her, probably a great deal more than she understands herself sometimes.

Maya climbs up onto the bay window seat, and Riley is suddenly struck by how much she's grown, and how young she used to be. When Maya turns, a question in her gaze, Riley somehow sees both the little girl and the young adult at the same time, the same small half-grin playing at the corner of her mouth, the same delicate fingers gripping the window frame, the same bright, blue eyes.

She sees herself, her life here, the friends she made, the friends she lost, the lessons she's learnt. But she also sees herself out there, the life she hasn't yet lived, the friends she'll make, all the lessons she's going to learn. And in her mind, Maya is always standing right there, next to her, just like she is now, reaching out for her hand.

Riley takes it and steps into her future.

**Author's Note:**

> listen, i wrote this entire thing on the notes app in my phone, like all of it, and i'm actually really proud of this one, and i'm very excited to have shared this with you all, so thank you for reading it. feel free to find me at my [tumblr](taylorswift.co.vu) and discuss these babies with me, i don't bite and i take requests!!! 
> 
> thank you to swift, ella, and katie for being my betas!


End file.
